Shaman’s Gallery’s 2-year clean streak ended in April with a bang. So our casual time-out between river trips got a lot less casual. Roy did much of the repair while I was on the river, and I finished her off.

Dawn and I did a photo shoot trip for Canyon Explorations’s soon to be redesigned website. Stay tuned.

The web team: Shine Creative Industries’ finest.

I managed to flip in Lava again, but with Dawn’s help we were right-side up again in under a minute, in time to pull away from impending rock collisions. It’s always good to recertify on one’s flip recovery procedures, but I’m hoping I don’t need to do it again soon.

A new ukulele case for Leo.

Then it was off to the north for the Dory Moon Yampa/Green extravaganza. In typical Dory Moon fashion we launched well upstream of sane folk. Then we dragged up a riffle and rowed up into the infamous Cross Mountain Canyon. Likely the first dories to pay this place a visit.

That allowed us to have a fun first day passing the Little Snake River, then camp at the normal people’s launch site at Deerlodge Park. The Yampa was appallingly low for the first few days, causing the boats to complain loudly in a few spots. But we made it, scathed but not shattered.

Rock art.

Amazing walls.

And of course we couldn’t take out where those sorry, sad normal people do either. We spent a night a Split Mountain Campground, then continued on down to Jensen, Utah.

After a night in Vernal to resupply we put the boats back in about 50 miles below Jensen at Ouray, which I think translates as “howling wind hellspot.” Coop and RJ are taking refuge while we cook dinner on the trailer.

The rock art of Desolation is cray-cray. Here’s a pile of bighorns, a Commanche, and a bow-and-arrow guy.

Kate and the Big Fish.

Cowboys, Indians, a choo-choo train, and the hand of destiny.

A fine buffalo.

Stretch-model horses

The space chicken.

Forest camping.

We continued on past the take-out at Swasey’s Rapid –are you sensing a theme here?–ran the new boat chute at the Green River dam, and camped at the River Terrace Motel for our final night. It’s a pretty nice camp.

Then off to Telluride to celebrate the premiere of Dawn’s movie about Fretwater Boatworks: Can’t Beat This Place For Fun. Might as well throw a party!

Craig Childs and the Scatterlithics put on a performance in dawn’s honor.

Dawn and the Big Screen–a crazy, gigantic inflatable movie screen on the banks of the San Miguel.

It was an honor to be a part of Mountain Film.

Back home Bears Ears retuned. She really doesn’t like House Rock Rapid, it turns out. She lost her bow there a few years back, and now her stern has been ripped loose.

But this is why we practice reverseability in our builds–because you-know-who is probably going to have to fix the wrecks. We use as little epoxy as possible, and a soft, non-permanent caulk to seam bulkheads. Screws are slotted and screw holes filled with soft fairing material–so it’s quite easy to get them out.

We had the back end off and ready to rebuild in two and a half hours.

The rebuild took a lot longer, however—straight forward but time consuming and complex.

And off she goes–just in time for Papa Bear to come in. It’s been a jagged year for the dories.